Study: More sleep gives home-schooled students academic edge By Trevor HughesNational Jewish Health researcher says home-schoolers get 90 more minutes of nightly rest than public school students, potentially better equipping them to learn.

By the end of the week, that’s almost an entire night’s sleep traditional students are missing, says study author Lisa Meltzer, an assistant professor of pediatrics at National Jewish Health in Denver. She says the changes brought by adolescence include alterations to when the sleep hormone melatonin is released in teens’ bodies, making it harder to get to sleep and wake up early.

“You’ve living in Philadelphia but your internal clock is in California,” Meltzer says. “As the week goes on, that sleep debt accumulates and makes it harder to learn.”

Bridget Oaks, 29, says she well remembers how hard it was to focus at school. Now she home-schools her daughter, 9, at their Fort Collins home, but sends her son, 5, to kindergarten. She says Justin, 5, learned recently from his teachers that waking up naturally is better than being woken up by his mom.

“He’s dead serious. He’s OK with going to school. But he tells me he doesn’t feel good on the days I have to wake him up,” Oaks says. “That’s his big thing now — he says he doesn’t get enough sleep. And he’s saying that at 5!”

Oaks says the flexible schedule of home schooling means her kids can keep learning even when they’re sick: they curl up in bed with her and read about subjects they’ve been studying.

More here. You don’t want to miss the school official’s response. Her hands are tied.